SHOPPING

Ostuni is excellent for shopping, with a very wide selection of shops. Those in the Centro Storico are aimed at tourists but nevertheless have very attractive and reasonably priced goods. Those in the more modern part of the town sell lovely jewellery, clothes and local pottery. It’s also great fun to visit a ferramenta – one of the many small ironmongers’ shops which will transport you right back to life in the 1950s.

There are very good fish shops which sell local mussels and a great variety of other seafood and fish. Fruit shops are also excellent and ice-cream (and granita) is to die for. Even the supermarkets have excellent deli counters with first class cheeses and hams. If you want to buy just enough prosciutto for two, ask for an etto, and don’t forget to ask for prosciutto crudo, otherwise they’ll give you ordinary ham.

Best of all is the Saturday morning market, one of the best in the whole of Italy, which covers a huge space in the modern part of the town. It starts very early in the morning and continues till about 2pm. Clothes, shoes, linen and kitchen goods are incredibly cheap and of good quality and the range of fruit and vegetables is quite stunning, making self-catering a real pleasure - and extremely economical.